


What it is

by anddirtyrain



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 16:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5341607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anddirtyrain/pseuds/anddirtyrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post 4x08. Felicity confronts Oliver after finding out he's been lying to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What it is

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still...processing, the end of the episode. This is part of that.   
> If you liked it, please leave me a comment! :) Those are literally my fuel to keep writing.

  
The alert appears on the left side of her Tablet at 11:39 on a Saturday.

With Oliver’s mayoral candidacy being so successful, there hasn’t been a shortage of ‘news’ sites trying to dig up dirt on him. So, when the dozen or so photos of Oliver leaving a house in midtown Central City pop up on her tablet, dated that same day, she goes through a very short list of possibilities.

Photoshop? A quick dip into the website’s ridiculously accessible e-mail account determines they’re real.

Is it actually Central City? Running the outline of the buildings in the background with known city landmarks confirms that one pretty fast.

He’s there to help Barry? A knot starts to form in her throat with the knowledge that Oliver would call her first, if the Flash Team needed their help. That  _they_  would probably call  _her_ first, and wouldn’t ask Oliver to get on a train and go there to visit some house in his street clothes.

He told her he’d be working on his campaign the whole day.

She knows there’s been something between them ever since they returned from Central City. He’s not very good at lying to her. But she knows if it was something important he would have told her, so she’s never pushed.

Unless he simply didn’t want her to know. To  _find out_.

What? She doesn’t know. But it’s been  _weeks._

She’s printing the pictures, one after the other, before she really realizes what she’s doing.  She’s calling him the next minute.

“Hi, Felicity?”

“Yeah.” She clears her throat. “Hey, where are you?”

“I’m uh…at the store. Just getting some things. Actually, what do you want for dinner?”

She swallows, looking at the time stamp in the photos. Less than an hour ago. A train from Central City takes much longer.

It’s bitter, realizing he’s lying to her. It hurts even more knowing that it’s been going on for a while.

“Surprise me,” she tells him.

 

.

 

She feels incredibly strange as she sits on the couch, waiting for Oliver to come home.

She called Caitlin and Barry and asked on her way home. She called Thea, only to be told that he asked for the day off.

 She feels like a crazy, paranoid wife as she waits; complete with a stack of photos in the coffee table and an overwhelming need to figure out what he is keeping from her. Like an episode of Scandal where she’s not Olivia Pope.

She’s still not sure why she printed the photos, she has never felt the need to be dramatic. Maybe it is because they represent the proof of what her heart doesn’t quite understand yet. The photos leave out the house number or a street name, so she can only wait until he’s home.  Wait, and read the articles about Ollie Queen going back to his cheating ways before she wakes up and wipes all that she can from the internet.

He wouldn’t cheat on her. She knows that. She thinks she's sure of that. ( _Maybe not, when was the last time she was enough for a man?_ ) The possibilities are right in front of her and breaking her heart. Does it have to do with his time in the island, then? He would’ve told her. He’s been acting strange since they returned from Central City he would have…Or maybe he wouldn’t. If he thought she was in danger. But he’s supposed to  _trust_ her.

Felicity is lucky the knot in her throat has kept her restrained to two glasses of wine.

She’s smart. Really smart. She knows things, she usually knows what’s going. She knows Oliver, too, better than anyone. Or at least she thought she did.

She’s not ready when he walks through the door.

She’s been sitting there for…a while, and she thought she would have time to come up with something, to say to him or to ask. But she can barely take a proper breath into her lungs when he stops a step or two away from her. She hears his gasp and doesn’t even need to look to see his eyes are on the photos in the table.

“Why did you lie to me?” she doesn’t mean for her voice to sound so small and pitiful.

She looks hopefully up at him, hoping to see a smile on his face because she’s misunderstood everything, but the devastating look he gets is enough to send those dreams crashing down. It feels like a fist closes around her heart, and  _squeezes._

“What are you keeping from me, _Oliver_?”

 

.

 

He sees her slowly process his words, the incredulity in her eyes replaced with heartwrenching sadness and behind it all, anger. It sends a shiver down his spine.

“She told me it was the only way I could meet him,  _Felicity_ -“

“You already said that,” she says, quietly, her eyes downcast.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I never wanted to keep this from you-“

“Yes, you did! Because you did keep it from me!” She stands up and he follows after her, irrationally wanting to put himself in front of the door. Every breath he takes is tainted with the fear that she’ll walk out of his life.  “I’m not mad you have a child, I’m mad that you lied to me about it! For  _weeks_!”

He bites his lip, hard, enough to ground him and make something feel real, because this is out of his worst nightmare. Tears start falling from her eyes as she breathes heavily. She looks at her like she has no faith in him and, just,  _what did he do_?

“Felicity…”

“Where you ever going to tell me?” she gasps out, covering her mouth as if to keep the sobs in. His heart is not just breaking, it’s cutting up his insides and making feel as repulsive as he is in her eyes right now.

“Samantha-“

“Is that her name? The woman you have a child with?” She takes off her glasses to wipe her eyes and the action makes the first tear escape his eyes. “I know what she said. But why didn’t you just tell me? I would’ve kept it a secret. She didn’t have to know. Why did you….why did you do what she wanted?”

Because he’s scared. He’s so fucking terrified of losing her.

“I didn’t see another way. I’m sorry. I-“ he takes a step towards her but she steps back. The words barrel out of his chest, destroying him in the process. Fear pounds red and alive in his head, in his heart, in his fingertips.  But he would’ve found a way to tell her, eventually. He needs to believe that.

“Is not right, what she did,” she tells him. “She had no right to ask that of you. But,  _Oliver_ , you didn’t have to agree. You could have trusted me. I thought we were a team, that we were building a life together-”

“We are!” he exclaims, taking a step closer, desperate to close the canyon he feels opening between the both of them. “Felicity, we-”

“ _You…_ you have this other life, somewhere else. This life I know nothing about,” she shrugs hopelessly. “You tell me you’re busy and get on a train and go be someone’s dad and I don’t get to know about it-”

“I just needed some time,” he cries, extending his hand towards her. It hurts. “some time to process.”

“You had five weeks,” she tells him slowly, and he- he never meant to break her heart. That was the last thing he wanted. “If you loved me…if you trusted me? Telling me wouldn’t have been a burden. It would have been a relief.”

He accepts the truth in her words, takes the punch deep in his gut because she’s right. It hurts in a visceral way, how she looks at him now, the disappointment in her eyes. He can’t help but wonder,  _how do we go back_?

“I was scared,” he says simply, the truth at last. “I can’t lose you, Felicity.”

She looks carefully at him, and he can see the fight going out of her. Her shoulders deflating and the sob that rocks her small frame. He wants nothing more than to hold her in his arms. 

“You just did,” she says.


End file.
